"You just need to be a flea against injustice. Enough committed fleas biting strategically can make even the biggest dog uncomfortable and transform even the biggest nation.”
-Marian Wright Edelman

Friday, November 16, 2007

US Agency Investigated for Forgeries in Russian Adoptions

Children's Hope International is an adoption agency based in Missouri with offices in Missouri, Arizona, California, Illinois, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington that did over 700 international adoptions last year. It is being investigated by seven states after authorities discovered that two employees were allegedly forging official documents being sent to Russian authorities.

The forgeries were discovered in July, when authorities in Arkansas received correspondence from Russian adoption officials, seeking additional information. However, the adoption officials in Arkansas had no record of the initial correspondence that prompted the Russian letter.

A few days of research revealed that the letter from Arkansas was really mailed from the offices of Children's Hope International. A wide search was conducted, and eventually, Children's Hope International's director, Dwyatt Gantt, admitted that ten documents were forged, affecting 7 states.

However, during a meeting with Tennessee adoption authorities, Gant is quoted as saying the forgeries went on for years, and were "widespread."

--from KSDK Newschannel 5's online report

According a TV news report, two Children's Hope International employees who worked out of the Missouri office, Mareda Eckert and Sue Ellison, had allegedly been copying the official letterhead of authorities in several states, writing the documents that Russia required, and then forging the signatures of the appropriate state officials. The documents would then be sent to Russia as some of the official paperwork required to complete a Russian adoption. It is unclear if the improprieties also included the use of notarization on these documents. Dwyatt Gantt's official statement about the affair, printed on Children Hope International's website would seem to imply that it might. Gantt there states that "two employees...were found to have mishandled paperwork which included the wrong use of notaries."

According to news reports, the documents involved "were used to assure Russian authorities that any children sent here would be properly care for."

The alleged forgeries involved documents made to look like they had come from officials in Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas.

Investigations in these states, some ongoing, have included hearings to determine whether CHI should lose its adoption license in these states and to determine whether criminal charges should be pursued.

The two Children's Hope International employees involved were fired a month after the alleged forgeries were discovered.

International Children's Hope Director Dwyatt Gantt has chosen to downplay the seriousness and significance of the forgeries. On a TV interview he stated that the alleged forgeries were, "foolish and misguided, but not malicious--not self serving on [the employees'] part."

In addition to Gant's official web-published statement, "A Message from Children's Hope International" on the affair, Children's Hope International has also sent out letters seeking to reassure current and former clients, and delineating what CHI had to done to alleviate the situation:

"As a result of Children's Hope being upfront and proactive, we have been assured by Missouri DFS and all states where investigations are complete, that we have handled this in the correct manner, and we have been ensured this will not adversely affect our work in these states."

He assures all that "this matter is already nearing resolution," stating that only two states have yet to put the matter to rest: Kansas and Illinois.

But according to news reports, things may not yet be as resolved as Gantt would have them be. In Missouri where CHI is based, a local TV station reports:

Missouri adoption regulators knew about the forgeries in August, after calls from other states. However, after an investigation, it was decided that Children's Hope International would not be sanctioned, and would keep its license.

Susan Shelton, a manager in the state Children's Division of the Missouri Department of Social Services, said on October 25, that police and prosecutors had not been contacted to investigate the forgery. However, on October 30, Shelton's bosses decided to contact police about the case.

That occurred after Missouri State Senator John Loudon, a Republican from Ballwin, started asking about what happened. Loudon is a long time adoption advocate, who is concerned that the forgeries could affect future adoptions of Russian children. Loudon wants a full investigation, and says Missouri must come clean with the Russians.

As for Russia....Russian authorities are already on edge with the American adoption of Russian children. Russians are concerned about:

A long string of cases in which Russian adoptees have suffered abuse and even death--14 Russian children killed to date--at the hands of American adoptive parents

The Masha Allen case in which a US adoption agency placed a Russian five year old with a pedophile and then failed to check up on her for nearly five years (fabricating one post placement report and doing another by phone) so that the child was abused for five years and became the unwilling "star" of illegal child pornography (Masha's photos are among the confiscated images in at least 50% of child pornography prosecutions).

The failure of many US adoption agencies to take seriously Russia's post adoption reporting requirements

Keeping Russia open to Americans for adoption has become an increasingly politically difficult and unpopular feat within Russia and the Russian government. This new problem can not help US-Russian adoption relations. But, so far at least, Russian authorities have restrained themselves:

Russian authorities are aware of the forgeries, but have not reacted in any way.

Perhaps they are waiting to see just how seriously America takes the corruption of adoption--whether we will see that wrongdoing is taken seriously and whether wrongdoers are investigated, sanctioned, and punished--all as a deterrent for future misconduct.

Or, instead, whether the aura surrounding international adoption will once again whitewash and downgrade all wrongdoing into an easily excused mush of well-meaning mistakes and oversights and sniveling explanations.....I mean really, it doesn't really make that much difference anyway, does it...I mean we're talking about saving orphans here....

What wouldn't be tolerated anywhere else and that would be stringently punished once again passes into relative insignificance in the glow of the absolute good that is adoption.

Would that those who excuse such indiscretions and corruption could see that each time such things are excused and passed over, it weakens international adoption further and makes clear that is it lacking in character, ethics, and accountability. International adoption will eventually be killed by such failing to take seriously these problems.

It will be a truly awful thing if Russian adoption closes because Americans refuse take adoption corruption seriously. If any children in the world are truly in need of adoption, it is the adoption eligible children languishing in Russian orphanages.

5 comments:

We adopted, through CHI, from Russia and worked with Sue Ellison. I can only tell you that our experience was first rate, that CHI did as good a job as you can do and that I would still highly recommend CHI. Having know Sue I hope that there are additional facts in this case that have not come out yet, she's a good person and was extremely helpfull in our adoption!

Apparently the explanation for the forgeries on CHI's website has been pulled... it's not at the link provided, and a quick scan of their site didn't turn it up. CHI is a very highly regarded agency - this is very disturbing news indeed. I hope the full facts come out soon.

Illegal adoptions in Texas. I am concerned about three Russian children who were adopted by a family in Texas. These children are being abused and I have not been able to get any authority to help them. I am wondering who I can contact.

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Contributing Fleas

Why These Fleas Bite

Desiree: In 1998 my husband David and I adopted a sibling group of two older girls from India.

Within six weeks of their arrival, our new daughters, who were severely emotionally traumatized, told us they had been stolen from their birthfamily.

For six long and difficult years, our agency, though asked to do so repeatedly, failed to investigate our daughters allegations.

Finally, on our own with the help of an Indian activist for the poor, we found our daughters' birthfamily and confirmed their disturbing story.

Despite all this there has yet to be so much as an apology from our agency, and certainly no justice. Not for our daughters. Not for our daughters' first parents. Not for ourselves.

It seems that NO ONE CARES about this crime.

Our US agency--which has not disputed the facts of the case--says that it bears no legal responsibility even if, like we say, they helped place stolen children in our home.

Our pleas to both the Indian and US governments have fallen on what appears to be deaf ears, and therefore, we assume, uncaring ears. The state office which licenses our agency has a phone machine for complaints; apparently they do not return phone calls--at least ours was never returned.

Meanwhile, the Indian orphanage director has been jailed three times on child trafficking related charges. He is currently trying to be relicensed yet again.

We have been left to ask the questions:

1) How could this have happened? Was our case simply a rare happenstance or could there be specific flaws--specific or systemic--in the system that have allowed/caused it to happen?

2) Why is it that no one cares about this kind of crime?

This blog represents some of the answers we've found to these questions. It also is shares the ongoing answers as we continue to learn.

Flea bites are simply individual incidents of exposing the reality of international adoption practices--one example, one practice, one analysis, one real-life experience, one proposed remedy, and one "big picture" at a time.

If our insignificant flea bites can save other families the extreme pain that our daughters, our daughters' first family, and our own family have endured, these flea bites will not be in vain.

Usha: When I adopted from India not that many years ago, I was ignorant about the adoption landscape.

I believed the adoption myth that adoption agencies are basically trustworthy and that with all the hoops adopters must jump through, there are sufficient checks and balances to ensure that adoptions are ethical.

After adopting, I began participating in the adoption community.

My eyes were opened by the racist attitudes and beliefs I observed in fellow adopters from India. I couldn't believe the dim view I saw many take of my children's country of birth, my own country of origin.

Where were the checks to ensure that children were adopted into non-racist families? Later, my eyes opened wider when I learned about scndal after scandal with the recurrent themes of: getting children "out," agencies willing to look the other way, laws that are good on paper, but that are not enforced and individuals advocating for reform simplistically painted as evil and "anti-adoption."

First, I thought adoption corruption was primarily specific to India. It didn't take long, however, to become aware of how pervasive adoption corruption is.

With that knowledge came a sense of obligation that as a participant in the system: no matter how unwitting, I owe it to my children to advocate for reform

“Justice will not come to Athens until those who are not injured are as indignant as those who are injured”

--Thucydides, Ancient Greek historians and author, 460-404bc

“The more I learn, the more race, culture, and class stand out as the key issues behind ethical problems in adoption, domestically and internationally—the same issues are at play in both"”

--Tesi Kohlenberg, Adoptive Parent

Adult Adoptee Voices

"We are not commodities. We are children that were torn away from our countries, our parents, and our culture. We are not the newest fad. We are women and men who forever have a hole that cannot be filled. We have voices, and we use them to express our outrage, our bitterness, our anger, and also our joy,our love,and our lives. To learn from us is to listen to what is, sometimes,underneath."

"Sending" Country Parent and Community Voices

"We are not animals to be bought and sold,"

--Ana Escobar, a Guatemalan mother whose baby was stolen from her and who suspected her child was funneled into the International Adoption system. Ana diligently searched for her child through pending adoption paperwork until she found her--with a false identity and fake DNA tests--waiting to be processed for adoption by a US family. After a new DNA test confirmed Ana was her child's mother, the two were reunited.